I have been (and am continuing) working like a complete madwoman. So this is just a quickie.Beavering away, chained to a laptop is not so bad when it’s a bit dull and dreary as it has been over the past week or so. But when it’s a glorious day like today - not too hot, fresh breeze, scattered clouds in an otherwise brilliantly blue sky - it’s really rotten. I could sit in my conservatory and work, but it gets really hot and I can’t see the screen properly. Believe me, I try and after a while have to give up and retreat into the darker depths of the house.

So to cheer myself up in a brief interlude after my lunch (hastily gobbled cheese baguette), I’ve decided to do a little list. I love lists.

5 Things I Love About Summer

1. Flowers. This is glaringly obvious, but when you think to some of the dreariness of winter (if, like me you’re yet to grapple with the skill of seasonal planting for colour), the riot of colour bursting forth everywhere is a joy. I think it really does make you feel more cheerful.

2. Bees, Moths and Butterflies. OK, glaring obvious again and linked to flowers, but these guys are not only beautiful and fun to watch, they’re also vital to THE SURVIVAL OF ALL MANKIND. Not completely vital, but they do play a heck of an important role in pollinating many of the foods that we rely on. As do other pollinators, but butterflies, moths and bees are pretty too. So pay homage to these wee beasties and plant lots of pollen and nectar-rich flowers and shrubs: buddleia, echinachea, foxgloves, verbena bonariensis, cosmos, sedum, lavender, borage - in fact, any flowering herb - and achillea are just the tip of the iceberg.

3. Eating my Own Veg. If you read this blog regularly (and if you do, thank you SO much) you may know that when it comes to seasonal veg growing, I’m rubbish. I just don’t pull my thumb out. I make charts and diagrams and all sorts, and then don’t take action. So most of my veg is produced during the late spring, summer and into the late autumn. Around this time of year in summer I am enjoying the fruits of my (limited) labour. There’s just no comparison to food that’s done food metres and not food miles. And yes, you do feel a bit smug when you tell everyone about how you made the most delicious meal with your own home-grown veggies and fruit.

4. Lots of Sunlight. Well yes - we get more sunlight in summer, everybody knows that. But although I’m not adverse to winter evening tucked in front of the fire with a blanket and flanked by a few cats, I do enjoy the extra energy and vitality that the extra hours of sunshine bring. I feel better, and I think I look better. I have quite pale skin, and in winter sometimes I can look a bit like the walking dead. Summer brings a glow to my skin, and I’m pretty sure I can feel the extra benefits of increased Vit D production. Also, having the extra time to work later into the evenings is a blessing.

5. Being Able to Visit Lots of Places. In the summer, if you want to visit somewhere or just go out, you don’t have to contend with wrapping yourself in sixteen layers to make sure you don’t feel uncomfortably cold (unless of course you live in London, where my friend Ben assures me you can walk around in a t-shirt all year round). I, probably like most females, feel the cold very easily and I become a grumpy, whinging lump if I’m forced to be outside when I’m feeling cold. So trips out can be a trial for Rich if I’m not happy about being there. In summer though, it’s more of a delight. Visiting parks, gardens, the beach, your local cafe - it all seems so much more carefree and easy doesn’t it?

I’m all about balance, so here’s another list:

5 Things I Don’t Like About Summer

1. Flies. I won’t use the word hate, but I intensely dislike flies. In summer, they’re everywhere - hovering around chicken poo pretty much as soon as they plop it out, scavenging around any microbe of cat food that’s left in the food bowl seconds after the cats have moved away, buzzing around my bin (especially since ruddy Council has switched to bi-monthly bin collections) and laying mangy maggots in it. YUCK! They’re just the most irritating thing about summer. And the worst part is that they can cause real damage in the form of flystrike. Pattie has been unwell lately, and her botty gets a bit messy. No sooner do we give her rear end a wash and blow dry, she squits another one out and messes the area up again. The other night we’d checked her bum whilst she was dozing in the nestbox. By mid morning the next day I was horrified to find she had flystrike and the maggots had hatched and were causing blood and general havoc. Pleased to say we got it cleared up, but it can really happen that fast - they only need around 12 hours to hatch and start feeding, so check your animals at least twice a day - particularly rabbits and chickens. Hedgehogs often fall foul of flystrike too. If you see one with fly eggs or a wound get it to a wildlife hospital or to your local vet quick sharp.

2. Heat Waves. I’m probably even more rubbish on intensely hot days than I am in the deep depths of winter. When I get too hot I get a massive throbbing headache, and everything seems to take thrice the amount of effort. So on really hot days where the temperature approaches or breaks the 30 degrees celcius mark, I simply lock myself away in our cool house and wait for it to be over. Of course, I have to tend to the animals as well and make sure they’re comfortable. The chooks hate hot weather and retreat to the back and side of the shed, were it’s perpetually shaded and cool. The rabbit house and most of the run is always in the shade as they’re not sun worshippers at all. They also have milk bottles filled with water that have been frozen in the fridge. They like to lie next to or on top of them until it’s cool enough to start hopping about again.

3. Ice Cream Van Jingles. I think our ice cream van men are in the midst of a turf war. From about Feb To Oct each year we are subjected to the incessant jingle jangle of ice cream van Muzak. I wouldn’t complain if it was once every now and then, but wherever they go, it seems to resonate around the whole town. So you end up with ‘Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside/Camptown Races/English Country Garden’ etc. going round and round in your head for days afterwards.

4. Dawn Choruses. Well, I don’t dislike them entirely. They are spectacular. But when you’ve been working late and you’re awoken by an overzealous blackbird, sparrows that must have little megaphones and booming woodpigeons, sometimes it can grow a little thin. And why is it that just as you’re dropping off…they start all over again!

5. Early mornings. Sort of in line with dawn choruses. If I wasn’t magnificently tired in the mornings, I would love them. In principle, I do. Dewy grass, blue skies, the quiet and calm (apart from dawn chorus). But in reality, in the throes of summer I have to drag myself out of bed between 5:00 - 5:45am to let chookies out. If we leave them too long, they start making alarm calls and shouting from inside the henhouse. Bunbuns come out then too. Cats are usually climbing over me to wake me up for breakfast. Rich and I take turns to get up, but sometimes you can’t help but long for the relatively later mornings in winter when you can have a lie in until gone 7.

How about you?

NB: Was supposed to be a quick blog entry. Somehow it’s turned into a mammoth post. Best get back to work now…

Two vegetable garden assistants letting me do all the work.

This weekend I finally finished digging out the big veg plot. It’s not that big really - it’s only about 5 or 6 metres long, but when you consider that I have a crappy back, and Rich resolutely left me to do it all myself, you can understand why it’s been quite an undertaking for me. I managed to unearth about 12 small bag’s worth of rubble and hardcore (bricks, ceramic roof tiles, drainage pipes etc), about 30 ant’s nests (hens ate the eggs, bit of a delicacy) and untangled an underground thicket of root systems.

Last time we went down to Biggin Hill to see Rich’s family, his Dad gave me two bags of compost which have been put to use in the plots. Otherwise I’d be growing vegetables in dirty sand. The soil is so poor that I think it’s going to need some super manuring, conditioning and feeding over the winter. Still, my Autumn King carrots like it, despite their daily dose of being rolled and slept on by Lilla the cat. And the Hercules onions are coming along. I’m hoping to get my ’snips in (for a roast dinner without ’snips is a sad sight to behold) too.

A couple of days ago I also moved my tent cloche (another gift from Rich’s parents) to cover my newly transplanted Kilaxy cabbages. I’d started them off in seed modules outside, and they’d vastly outgrown my Primo cabbages that had been sown earlier. So I decided now was a good time to transplant them. I took the seed tray off the garden table and put it down beside me whilst I made little holes for the cabbages to go in. My back had been turned for a few seconds, during which time Yoko had strode over and discovered a tray of tasty morsels.

In the space of about 10 seconds, she’d decimated about 5 of my cabbages. Good work, Yoko. I think she thought she was helping - a sort of quality control and selection process, as I always make a point of growing a few extras. Feeling that her work was done, Yoko soon got bored and wandered off somewhere else leaving me to plant in the remaining cabbages. I didn’t want to take any chances though, and staked down my tent cloche. Because I actively encourage the birds to come and feed, I don’t want to inadvertantly invite a load of pot-bellied woodpigeons down to finish off the rest. I still have a tray left to plant down on the allotment, but have nothing to cover them in. So there it’ll be a case of blind, foolish beginner’s luck where brassica growing is concerned.

Today though, I have to resign myself to a few hours of cleaning. So I’m just about to brandish my Mum’s super duper Dyson in one hand (our vacuum is, for want of a better word, crap) and a bottle of Bishop’s Finger real ale in the other. BORING!

Usually I would be moaning my socks off about the rain, the dreaded rain! But it’s actually a welcome relief, things were starting to look a bit parched, and I imagine my water butt is brimming again. Of course, it also saves me all the watering of an evening too. Not such a bad chore, but it’s good to have ‘free time’ to do other ’stuff’.

I haven’t really been that active at the Smallest Smallholding lately. Lots of work and stress in other areas (praying for funds to clear, only to be bitterly disappointed that I am going to have to wait yet another weekend with not a penny to my name), as well as trying to forge ahead on the allotment. We are currently undertaking the UTTERLY BORING task of removing all the twitch in the ‘upper section’ of the allotment by fork and hand. It’s going in a metal bin to be burnt later on. I also cleared around the raspberries (still haven’t worked out whether they’re summer or autumn fruiting), and am currently sporting a slightly infected splinter wound, thanks to our ancient wooden-handled rake.

I managed to get at least 50 more sets of my Hercules onions in here at the Smallest Smallholding though, only 50 more to find space for. Although, if I’m honest with myself, I am really pushing it a bit now. Last year I got through 50 sets in around 3-4 weeks, and by August I had cleared them out. This year I hope at least my inability to plant anything on time has translated into a sort of successive planting plan, where I’ll be able to continually harvest. That’s the plan anyway. It really depends on the weather this year - I’m relying on another run of very mild weather to get everything going. And I’m also relying on Lilla, one of my cats, to NOT go under my fleece tunnels and dig up the onion sets. Or roll in my carrot seedlings and crush and/or displace them. I say rely - unfortunately Lilla is a law unto herself and despite my protests, she does as she pleases.

I still haven’t planted any sweetcorn, and let’s face it - I could be setting myself up for a big failure if I tried to do it now. Bunnies are chomping their way through sweetcorn like it’s going out of fashion, so I may have to resort to (shock! horror!) buying in some plugs to get a bit of a head start. I’m a bit funny about buying in plants from supermarkets or garden centres. I just feel like I haven’t had enough control over them, I can’t really say “look what I grew!” because I wasn’t responsible for the whole process. But then again, I bought my ‘leeklings’ from a WI stall last year, and leeched off someone else’s handywork and claimed those leeks as my own. It feels a bit different though, taking something from another gardener rather than a commercial outlet. Maybe I’m just far too puritan about these things.

My aubergines are going very well and need repotting now. Once the weather has improved a bit I’ll put a few of them outside the door to sell, along with my tomatoes. My tomatoes are gaining height as each day passes, quite spectacularly. I still can’t get over the fact that not long ago, they were tiny dormant seeds, and now look at them! This year I’ve been so much more regimented with my watering. I am a bad earth mother sometimes, but this year I am willing to face up to my failures and try to improve. My tomatoes suffered as a result of my haphazard watering schedule last year. We ended up with black rot under a lot of the fruit. And I had too many plants to contend with, so we ended up chucking lots of overripe tomatoes to the hens. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing, they gobbled the toms up with glee. Free food, and all that.

Oh, and the asparagus that are going to seed are looking glorious.

Well it wouldn’t be a typical week at the Smallest Smallholding without a poorly hen and some baytril thrown in.

Yoko has developed a respiratory infection, something she’s prone to because of her egg yolk peritonitis condition. She has a small amount of fluid in her air sacs anyway, but the amount of fluid has increased and she’s sneezing and coughing quite a bit. We noticed this a couple of days ago, but typically it was a weekend. We rang yesterday and got her in to see our vet today - so she’s getting 1.2ml oral baytril once a day, administered in a few juicy grapes that she gobbles up. She’s also having a diuretic to try and get rid of the excess fluid. She seems ok in herself - out and about, doing chickeny things and eating well, so fingers crossed she’ll get over it. She’s actually improved since yesterday, which is a positive sign at the moment. If the antibiotics don’t nail the infection (apparently baytril is one of the fastest acting antibiotics), then they’ll try a paediatric-like nebuliser to ‘mist’ her with.

So yes, more vet bills. I did say ‘cautiously optimistic’ didn’t I?

Today however has been quite productive. Last night we spent the evening burning all the bindweed, sticks pulled out of the old compost heap, and stuff that’s too big to go through the chipper, and today I was fired up for more. After the rain had been and gone, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. After a short stroll around the place, I found myself out there in my pyjamas, working away. I have a tendency to start picking at something and then get really involved. Rich requested that I actually get properly dressed (I was stood at the gate talking to him in the kitchen, neighbour walked past and inwardly marvelled at my rain mac, pink cat pyjama bottoms and wellie-shoe combo), so I did. Sort of. A quick change into trackie bottoms and a vest top - yes, it was that warm. I did a bit of a Charlie Dimmock though. And I wouldn’t recommend it.

Anyhow, I digress.

A few months ago we salvaged some bricks that were going to landfill. They were rescued from our local lower school, where they formed the well-trodden path of many a child, including me. It seemed mad that they were going to the tip - they were in tip top condition. I’d already laid some as a path inside the greenhouse, and as a small paved area just outside it to put pots on. I had quite a few left over, and I’ve been using them to outline the new larger veg plot. Thing is, I’ve got halfway round and realised that I haven’t got enough to do the whole job. POO BUM! I’ll have to subsitute with some of my (different coloured/shaped) freecycle bricks. It’ll look crude (rustic, in my language), but it’ll do it’s job.

Anyway got a few canes up, planted out the 4 broadbeans I’ll trialed in the pots (done very well, thanks) and put in enough for a small crop around the rest of the canes. At least this way I’ll have a longer spell of cropping, having staggered their planting. Although, if I was really clever, I’d have put all the remainder beans in at more intervals. Now I’ll have a few followed by a glut. That’s if Mr Mouse,or Miss Hen, or a naughty little kitty cat doesn’t get to them first! It’s my first year growing beans, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Also sowed in two small rows of early turnips by the beans, simply because I couldn’t work out where else to put them. They should really have gone in a lot earlier to make the most of their early-ness. But I like to fly by the seat of my pants (ahem) and live life on the edge. They need to be kept moist to prevent woody flesh, so I hope this year I pull my socks up where the watering is concerned. Would help if I could rig up a couple of extra waterbutts, but unfortunately personal finances don’t allow this. And waterbutts on Freecycle are like gold dust.

Finally, as dusk descended and the light faded tonight, I forked the ground around the growing onions. The soil is so sandy that it develops a sort of ‘crust’ that isn’t particularly permeable for rain. So I gave it a good turn, taking care not to disturb the onions or their roots.

A better day than I had anticipated.

Yes, the snow is beautiful, it’s fun (if, like me, you’re not a commuter) and novel.

Our white cat Lilla loves the snow. She’s a complete snow cat - I think it’s about the only time she has some sort of camouflage, so she goes potty. She bats the snow, jumps in it, runs around the perimeter of the Smallest Smallholding with a wild look in her eyes, making little chirrups and ‘brrRRRRp!’ noises. This morning after breakfast she leaped onto the roof and did the usual Snow Cat routine. Goodness knows how she doesn’t fall off (although she did once, and then just walked off as if nothing had happened, whilst I had a heart attack and almost keeled over).

But these intermittent whiteouts make it extremely difficult when you’re approaching the middle of April and trying to get as much into the ground as possible. Or you’re trying to dig. Or you’re trying to encourage things to germinate. I got my tent cloche up just in time a couple of days ago, in a bid to try and warm the soil up before I sow my parsnip seeds in directly. Good timing, Lucy. The themidrome garlic (a hardy variety, another good choice given the snow and frosts we’ve had this winter) and early Radar onions are holding their own. The Hercules onion sets I planted a while back have yet to do anything - not surprising really. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they’ve not started rotting! The cabbages are peeking through, and weren’t bothered in the slightest by the snow showers. The hens, on the other hand, were not impressed by the snow. They never are.

So in light of Daniel Corbitt’s weekly forecast, I think next week may be a bit of a damp squib too as far as the Smallest Smallholding’s vegetable growing goes. I could repot my tomatoes I suppose. Maybe stick the peppers in the airing cupboard to give them a boost. Of course there’s lots of landscaping and digging to do, but I’m crap when I’m damp and cold.

So all I can do in the meantime is lounge about and fall asleep on the sofa covered in cats. If only.

I woke up just an hour or so ago to a fine dusting of snow. It’s still coming down in a steady flurry, tiny criss crossing flakes that are settling everywhere. I’m sitting here on top of the world (or so it feels) on the second floor looking out across the Smallest Smallholding. My cat Mindu is curled up with me, headbutting me at every opportunity and quietly purring. The other cats are all dotted about the house curled up fast asleep. Rich is tucked up in bed quietly snoozing away. Now that I’ve come in, the birds are coming in to land in the fruit frees where the bird seed is. Like a squadron of spitfires, they circle and dive down with sweeping yet precise movements. I topped the feeders up this morning, well aware that after such a cold night and with the prospect of snow they’d need extras today. I must have counted at least 50 finches (greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches and some bramblings), as well as a collection of collared doves and woodpigeons. Our resident blackbirds tend to skirt around the edges in the hedges and trees, darting in and out of the pyracantha or coming down onto the lawned area to hoover up the sunflower hearts.

The hens are totally non-plussed with the snow. I let their ladder down this morning, only for them to come down, one by one and gather underneath the house, not wanting to venture out. With some coaxing, they formed an orderly line and marched quickly into the relative warmth and dry of the greenhouse where I’d put down extra straw yesterday evening. There are currently two summer chairs acting as makeshift covers, and they huddle underneath in the straw bedding and settle down. The greenhouse door is only just open enough so that they can get in and out, to try and keep as much warmth in as possible. They’ve got their drinking water and food in there too, so they’ll only come out to get to the nestbox in the henhouse to lay.

I left what little seeds I’ve sown outside - my Kilaxy cabbages, tendersnax carrots in pots, some broadbeans and a mystery seed tray (can’t remember what I sowed - could be tomatoes? In which case, they’re probably going to be buggered now) under the henhouse extension run, away from the mice, birds and Cynthia who likes to tip everything up in order to get a good look. My new plot is still just a third dug so far, I have not been tempted to venture outside for at least a week, as I’m rubbish with cold weather and I don’t like getting cold and damp (who does?!). The allotment has been neglected for about 2 weeks, owing in part to strong winds - it’s like a wind tunnel down there - Nannie’s return from the rehabilitation unit at the hospital, work, and redecorating the kitchen. Mum and I are resolute in our pledge to get down there ASAP and start getting things ready for planting.

I did manage to get some Hercules onion sets in - goodness knows how they’re doing to fare with this snow as I took the fleece tunnels down during the windy weather. I have 150 more sets so if they turn out to be a disappointment, it’s not a complete disaster if they don’t ‘work’ properly. My super early Radar onions are slowly making progress though, which is encouraging. I’m going to get the rest of my broadbeans in, now it seems the windy weather has all but passed I’ll get some canes up and put them straight in the ground.

I think the wee wee chitting potatoes are actually ok - which is really surprising. It seems the tubers are tougher than I first anticipated. Whether or not they’ll grow mutant potatoes as a result of their exposure to the near-radioactive quality of cat wee remains to be seen. I’m regarding it as an accidental yet quite interesting little Smallest Smallholding experiment. I’ve also got a plethora of herbs to sow - probably about 8 or 10 different types, but not sure where they’re going to go yet. I think I might have to buy some pots and then grab some of the pot holding trays from the garden centre. They pile them up at the exit and you can take as many as you need - really handy for keeping everything together and makes moving things around much easier. And of course, a great recycling initiative.

Intermission: - the snow flakes are gathering pace, and getting larger. A squadron of starlings has just arrived too. There are a few slightly resigned-looking doves and pigeons sitting in the tall tree. Hens are not venturing outside, they’re staying snuggled in the straw in the greenhouse. Bramblings are going potty around the feeders.

End of Intermission.

Yup, still got loads of sowing to do. The thing is, from my very limited experience I’ve decided that it’s best not to rush these things. On the one hand, you have the opportunity to sow, and as with my onion sets, if they fail, you can sow again. However, I think if you try and push things too early then you end up with leggy, weak seedlings that don’t do as well. I don’t use propagators, but then I can pop to the shops if I need something to eat at the mo, so I can afford to take my time. The plan is to not rely on shops (especially supermarkets), to master the art of storing veg, achieve successive planting for continuous crops etc, but at the moment I’m just concentrating on growing good sized quality vegetables. I think propagators are an exact science and I’m a) not tempted and not impressed by other family member’s attempts to use them and b) can’t afford one anyway.

Rich’s parents came to visit yesterday, and they said they’re trying to grow vegetables from the plug trays this year. Apparently Suttons are doing a special offer whereby for around £25 you receive about 175 plugs, with 20 of a different vegetable. I may have got the particulars completely wrong, but the figures I’m giving are being served up by my memory which believes itself to be accurate at this present time. I think plugs are a great way to get growing if you have limited space, facilities or have difficulty raising seeds, either because your soil is poor (Rich’s parents’ soil is chalky and stony, although they’re trying raised beds too to try and improve it) or you don’t have enough window space or a greenhouse to start everything off in. I think anything that gets and keeps people growing veggies is good, I think the more people that learn about the way things grow and the nurturing of their plants and veg will have a greater appreciation for food, its taste and where it comes from. I would love to see Primary Schools (or if you’re Bedfordshire folk, Lower and Middle Schools) investing more time in teaching children these skills, and perhaps starting them off with plug vegetables would be great. Then they could progress to growing from seed. I remember as a child at school we would have egg shells with drawn on faces, stuffed with damp tissue paper and cress seeds. That was my first experience of growing something.

Speaking of eggs, I’m not sure how all the Easter Egg hunts are going to go down today in the snow. I expect there will be a lot of excited children waking up to the snow. I’m not sure there’s going to be enough to sledge on here, but it’ll still be nice for them to wake up to it. Even better is that a lot of adults will be able to enjoy it too, being a Sunday and a bank holiday weekend. And then of course there’ll be those that will have a nice walk to Church for the Easter service. Mum is coming around a little later to deliver a little Easter present for us - she says it’s not an egg but it’s baked, so can’t wait for that. I have a lot of work to catch up on, but I’ll be snuggled up on the sofa with my cats and duvet. And next week when the snow has melted, I’m going to do another sowing session.

Happy Easter all x

Pics coming soon!

I’m currently sporting a some major lacerations and puncture wounds to my arm and I fear that my chitting potatoes are RUINED!

OK, I’m revelling in being a little melodramatic here, but I do have a few puncture wounds and scratches on my arm and I think a few of my potatoes might bite the dust.

I was basically working away upstairs today, when I heard a big commotion downstairs. It turns out that a neighbour’s cat had invited himself into our kitchen, and one of our cats was NOT having it. So you can imagine the noise, the tumbling about, the fat tails and me admist the furore trying to simultaneously separate three cats whilst keeping myself in tact. Not an easy feat.

The cats tumbled through the utility room and ended up in the conservatory with another one of my cats. Our cat Tortoise (confusing, sort of) who had flown at the visiting neighbour’s ginger cat was getting muddled up and going for our ginger cat Tom too. Poor Tom didn’t know what the hell was going on, and neighbour’s ginger cat was leaping about the place, tiddling everywhere. He settled on my chitting potatoes, and managed to soak a few of them with his widdle. So owing to the ridiculously caustic and corrosive nature of cat wee, I don’t think they’re going to make it.

I picked him up off my potatoes, and he was a bit wound up. He starting yelling at me, and Tortoise took it as her cue to launch herself onto my arm, trying to swipe the neighbour’s cat that I was carrying. With just her front paws, she dug her claws in and hung off my arm for a good few seconds, all her big fat weight bearing down through her claws into MY SKIN. I asked her to let go politely, and finally she moodily obliged, allowing me to put the visiting neighbour’s ginger cat out of the catflap (don’t think he’ll be around again in a hurry). I went to tend to poor old Tom who was looking all big eyed and worried. After a few soothing words and gentle pats, and a whole lot of Feliway sprayed around the house, I think normality has been restored. Neighbours have also been informed about their cat, mostly because I wanted to check he was ok. Tortoise was right to defend her territory, but she is a complete madam sometimes and can be such a mardy old trout. Poor Tom got a bit of a boxing just because she’d been put in a bad mood - but he loves her so much that he follows her around regardless. Weird cat.

I told Rich about the potatoes and he pulled a face - “you’re not going to EAT them now are you?” he asked. Cue a whole load of explaining about how potato tubers actually work, and the fact that you don’t eat the seed potato itself. Still, it doesn’t matter, I can’t see the wee-wee potatoes doing anything now. Boo hoo. What do I do? Clean them? Leave them? Chuck then out?

I’ve cleaned and tended to my wounds with a whole lot of antiseptic - I think I came off the worst out of the whole scenario. 4 large puncture wounds - 2 for each paw that was clamped around my arm, and a series of smaller punctures and scratches. I think Tortoise might have gone so far as to get her claws into my muscle or tendon - it’s SO bloody sore. I kind of feel cheated that it doesn’t look as bad as it feels! Mum said perhaps if it doesn’t get any better, a trip to the docs and some sort of injection might be in order.

Oh, and Rich’s helpful contribution after the whole furore went like this: “that cat pissed on your shitting (chitting) potatoes, ha HA!”. Thanks Rich.

Just a quick update - Pattie is much MUCH better today. Back to her old self I would say. It seems I may have jumped the gun a bit and mistaken her fluidy crop for an empty crop, or crop full of bio live yoghurt! I think the yoghurt may have helped, perhaps she just had a bit of an upset tummy. Who knows - this is the thing with keeping hens, the diagnosis can only be done if the ailment is obvious (e.g. a wound or bumblefoot). Otherwise it’s a case of observation, antibiotics, antifungals, tests, cultures and all sorts. Well, it has been for us anyway. But my hens are not working birds, they’re my pets and despite costing me 50p each, I would invest so much money into them if need be. I think Yoko’s vet bills amounted to over £250, but that was partly because we changed vet twice because we needed to find someone who was well-versed in all things avian! Bit more difficult than you might expect.

They’re enjoying the sunshine at the moment, as am I. It feels just so good to be out there with the sun radiating on your skin. Sometimes I don’t realise how much I miss it in the winter. I’ve noticed that the blackbirds are starting to get a bit fruity with each other - the Smallest Smallholding was resident to about 7 or 8 pairs last year. Despite the fact that there are so many, they tend to hang around the place and get on quite well considering they’re supposed to be competing. I expect we’ll soon have the starlings starting to build their nests in the broken wooden soffit too. That means loud wake up calls at dawn for us for a fair few months, as it’s right next to our bedroom window.

So the sun is out, and all around buds are budding, shoots are shooting and I’m starting to think I should have already started sowing for this year’s Smallest Smallholding crops. Tomorrow I’m going to see my sister’s new kitten - her first ‘family’ cat (we have 4 and are more than well versed by now), can’t wait! It’s been years since I’ve held a kitten. I also remember when there was a kitten ’season’ - not so much the case now with the milder winters. Another side effect of global warming perhaps?

Today is the 5th anniversary of the introduction of two of our cats into our household. We got Lilla and Mindu (just don’t ask about the names) on 1st September 2002, as two rescue 4 month old kittens from the Godmanchester branch of Wood Green Animal Shelter. They love life at the Smallest Smallholding - apart from the annoyance of other cat Tom and the late great grandoise Tubby. When I got my fleece tunnels for the veg patches earlier this year, I’m sure that they thought it was just another fun toy put there solely for their disposal. And yet I can’t berate them too much for it!

I often walk by the plots, only to see a flash of fur and a sharp exit from under the tunnels, and when I peel back part of the fleece, I discover that my carrot seedlings have been sat on, and are rather ‘bent back’. They seem to make a speedy recovery though, despite being sat and rolled on at least one or twice a day. In fact, my Autumn King are doing very well at the moment, so it might be possible that I got them in just the nick of time to get a sizeable crop before the winter.

I also captured Mindu using my veg plot as a convenient WC. I know it seems a bit strange, but she had such a stupid look on her face, I couldn’t resist taking a picture as I had already got the camera on me. So I shall have to take some (pleasant-looking?!) measures to stop them using my plots as super-sized litter trays. It’s just the girls that do it - the boys suprisingly are far more private (thank goodness).